Document Templates for TeX and LaTeX

04/21/2000

Last week I showed how
to process TeX and LaTeX input files. Now that you're familiar
with how to print and preview these files, we can start making input
files using these simple, boilerplate templates.

To make a document with TeX or LaTeX, you generally use your
favorite text editor to write an input file containing the text with
the appropriate markup. Then, you process this TeX or LaTeX input file
to create an output file in the DVI format, which you can then preview,
convert or print.

What an input file looks like

For presenting a programming language, it's an old tradition among
programmers to give a simple program that just outputs the text
"Hello, world" to the screen; such a program is usually just detailed
enough to give those unfamiliar with the language a feel for its basic
syntax.

We can do the same with document processing languages like TeX and
LaTeX. Here's the "Hello, world" for a TeX document:

Hello, world
\end

If you processed this file with tex, it would output a DVI file
that displayed the text "Hello, world" in the default font on the
default page, with default margins. Here's the LaTeX equivalent:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Hello, world.
\end{document}

Even though the TeX example is simpler, LaTeX is generally easier
to use for making structured documents, while TeX is better for more
experimental layouts or specialized documents.

Using the templates

To write a document with a template, insert the contents of the
template file into a new file that has a .tex or .ltx extension, and
edit that. (Use your favorite text editor.)

To make sure that you don't accidentally overwrite the actual
template files, you can make them read only, like this:

$ chmod a-w template-file-names RET

The bracketed, uppercase text in the templates explains what
belongs there; fill in these lines with your own text, and delete the
ones you don't need.

Then, process your file with either the latex or tex command as
discussed last week, and you've got a typeset document!

Continue to the next page for the templates.

Note:You can download the templates below individually with the links provided, or view a listing of all of them here.